


Chaos Abounding

by Celticmuse5



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Post Grave Danger, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticmuse5/pseuds/Celticmuse5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gil mopes, and then Gil and Nick talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chaos Abounding

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoliers for "Evaluation Day", "A Little Murder" and "Grave Danger".

At 7:00 pm on a warm September evening, Gil Grissom sat on a bench across from his favorite roller coaster in Las Vegas, feeling as sorry for himself as he ever had. He had just ridden Chaos for the third time in a row, but he felt no more relaxed than he did an hour ago when he entered the amusement area on top of the Circus Circus Hotel.

Normally, Gil rode coasters when a case got too intense, or when a string of difficult cases had come close to overwhelming him. That wasn’t the situation tonight. In fact, he had the night off, and the previous night’s shift had been relatively straightforward – a mugging, a couple of burglaries at small businesses (not connected to each other), a simple assault, and one gang-related murder handily solved by the promising team of Sara and Greg. He’d even been able to spend some time with Catherine and Warrick at the beginning of his shift, chatting in the break room about nothing in particular. It had been almost like old times, barring the distinct absence of one very important person.

In the wake of Nick Stokes’s close brush with death almost four months ago, Catherine, Gil and Conrad Ecklie had managed to have several mostly civil conversations dedicated to finding a way to reintegrate the old nightshift crew, at least temporarily, in order to aid Nick in his return to casework.

Given the years of bad blood between Conrad and Gil, it had taken Gil some time to trust that Conrad was truly acting with good intentions. In some ways, it was proving surprisingly harder to negotiate a compromise with Catherine. Gil could acknowledge that she wanted to do everything she could to help Nick get back on the job, as Gil himself did. It was simply that Catherine’s ideas for accomplishing that admittedly complex goal were making Gil…twitch.

Gil was uncomfortably aware of the similarities between Catherine’s suggested restrictions on Nick’s upcoming shifts, and Gil’s own restrictions on Nick in the past. In his less lucid and most shamefully self-centered moments he imagined that some twisted version of destiny must have taken a hand in Nick’s ordeal, solely to prove to Gil that bad shit happens to good people no matter how many precautions one might take to prevent tragedy. ‘Well, I get it now, so go screw with someone else for a change.’

“Gil? Grissom?”

Startled, Gil jerked upright, coming face to face with the man he’d just been thinking about. He looked well – rested, relaxed, as fit as ever. It was easy to imagine that the events of May 18th had never happened. But Grissom reminded himself that it would be just as disastrous for Nick if his friends ignored those events as it would be to overreact to them.

“Nick! What are you doing here?” Smiling slightly, he gestured to the empty bench next to him; the other man obliged, pointing at the line-up for the Tilt-a-Whirl as he sat.

“Treating my sister and nephew before they head back to San Antonio tomorrow.”

Gil spotted them easily, a tallish brunette in her early 40s and a pre-teen boy, still marked by childhood but showing every indication of turning out just like his Uncle Nick, lucky child. Both mother and son bore a strong resemblance to Nick’s mother, as Nick himself did. Gil smirked slightly.

“You come from very handsome stock, Nicky.”

Nick looked at him askance. “If that’s your way of asking me if she’s single, the answer is yes. But she’s really not your type at all. Kind of, um… pious, for lack of a better word.”

He wasn’t actually interested in Nick’s sister, but knew better than to be that blunt. “Really?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I love her and all. But if you think I’ve reacted badly to some of the people we meet up with in our work, you’d be appalled at Charlene. She makes me look downright adventurous.” Nick said the last part with censure tinged with affection.

“People change, Nick. You aren’t the same person you were when you came to Las Vegas. You definitely aren’t the same man who nearly got himself beaten up by a little person in a motorized wheelchair.” Gil smiled fondly at the memory.

“Ha ha, Gris. You trying for a second job as a comic?” Nick grimaced theatrically, but then turned serious. “You looked like you were thinking some pretty deep thoughts when I spotted you. You want me to leave you alone?”

Gil shook his head. “No, not at all. Actually, I was thinking about you, if you want to know the truth. About your return to shift next week.” He turned to look directly at Nick, not trusting his hearing alone to pick up all the possible nuances Nick might put out.

“Huh. Does that mean you’re worried about how I’ll do? I’d understand it if you were.” Nick turned on the bench to mirror Grissom’s posture, closing the gap between them slightly.

Gil hesitated for a moment, ordering his thoughts before he spoke. “I think it’s the environmental factors that I’m focused on more than your behavior.” Seeing confusion on Nick’s face, Gil clarified. “Human behavior is unpredictable. Other people can’t be sufficiently accounted for. Catherine and I can put all the safeguards in place we can think of, but I still can’t predict all the things that could happen.”

Nick’s look of confusion cleared. “No one can, Gris. And I don’t expect you to. I still have triggers, I won’t pretend not to. But my doc’s given me lots of ways to recognize a problem before it becomes…a problem.” He looked over at his sister and nephew, who were just climbing into one of the red cars that were angled to spin and drop when the ride began.

“All I want is the chance to get back to a normal life, to do work that I love, that’s important and that I’m good at.”

“That you’re **very** good at, Nicky.”

Nick met Gil’s eyes, holding them for a long moment, evidently measuring his sincerity. Finally, taking a deep breath, almost subsonic in pitch, he nodded his thanks.

“So, does this mean I can expect to be paired with another CSI on every case? No DB cases? Lab work only?”

Grissom shrugged and sighed. “I’m not sure. To some extent, it’s out of my hands. Catherine and I haven’t even been able to agree on guidelines, let alone particulars. Ecklie is mostly leaving it up to us to work out, but I’m not sure if that’s best right now. Frankly, I think we’re both too close to the situation, and to you, to be entirely rational about this.”

Nick looked vaguely uncomfortable, cheeks turning pink. “As much as Catherine is my supervisor on paper, I think you know that it’s you I look for at a scene first. I know you don’t like that, but that doesn’t make it less a fact. If you think I’m not ready,” he sketched a short-lived grin, “be a man and tell me.”

Grissom sat for a long moment, studying Nick. If he looked closely, he could still see the Nick Stokes he had first met over six years ago – a handsome young man, the baby of his privileged family, a Texas transplant with a gentle soul.

But that Nick was being overwritten by a new version, the details of which were still unknown to Grissom, possibly even to Nick himself. The process, Gil realized in that moment, had probably even started long before Nick’s path had crossed Frank Gordon’s. Well, he missed the beginning of the metamorphosis, but Gil hoped to be around to see the finished product.

He looked over at the Tilt-a-Whirl; Nick’s sister and nephew were lining up to ride again.

“Nick,” he said, “could I interest you in a roller coaster ride?”

 

End


End file.
